Comparing Life to Fiction

Summary: Life and fiction can often imitate each other. An example of this is found in comparing William Faulkner's 1930 short story "A Rose for Miss Emily" with a 1987 article in the Philadelphia Inquirer. The fictional and the real story have much in common, as each involves an affluent, reclusive woman who shelters the body of a dead companion in an upstairs bedroom and successfully keeps this secret until her death.

COMPARING LIFE TO FICTION

Fiction often imitates life, as well as life imitates fiction, as we will see in the following comparison between a newspaper article in the Philadelphia Inquire in 1987 and a short story written by William Faulkner in 1930. Although there are some differences such as the time, place and circumstance, the two studies are chillingly similar.

In an article featured in the Philadelphia Inquirer on January 30, 1987, titled " A Woman's Wintry Death Leads to a Long Dead Friend ", the body of Frances Dawson Hamilton, 70, was discovered by police after she had frozen to death in her home. Even more shocking was the discovery of a second body, that of Bernard J. Kelly, 84, in an upstairs bedroom. Kelly had apparently been dead for about two years, based on the last sighting by neighbors. The body was found in a twin bed, clothed in long johns and socks and...